What kind of answers are you hoping for here?
Experiences: Why did you do it, how did you feel afterwards, did you regret it, did anything change in you afterwards?
I catcalled this woman the other day after seeing her at the store. Since it was just the two of us in that aisle, I gave her a friendly pat on the butt. She must’ve liked it, because she went home with me.
Also, she’s been my GF for over 14 years. Sexual harassment isn’t cool, guys. Unless it’s consensual.
People seem obsessed with circulating rumors that I have (among other rumors), but the answer is no, I have not.
Have you ever murdered anyone?
What kind of answers are you hoping for here?
Experiences: Why did you do it, how did you feel afterwards, did you regret it, did anything change in you afterwards?
I’ll go first:
Yes, but not in bad faith. I really liked a girl in school and at some day after school (we were sitting together to do some exercises) I awkwardly approached her and tried to kiss her. To my defense: My autism is strong and doesn’t tell me when things are awkward. She pulled back and I realized how shocked she must be, so I awkwardly apologized. She said “yeah yeah it’s fine”. and i left. The next day, however, she avoided me and we didn’t talk afterwards.
I’m guessing that it was in fact not fine, and I’m sorry for making her feel bad. I’m not sure what to do, I never saw her again because my parents moved away so I changed school afterwards. I’m thinking about reaching out to her and apologizing again, but I’m not sure whether that’s such a good idea (it happened more than a year ago and I’d have to count on chance to figure out a way to contact her.)
Call me a nutcase but this story is true. Save yourself all the “ooh you’re such a bad person, you shouldn’t have done that”. Can anybody relate to this experience? Has anybody direct experiences being on the other side of this? I’d like to hear them. Thanks.
You’ve apologized.
Autism (and possibly a touch of other things) will leave you feeling like this is unresolved when it is, in fact, resolved.
She may not want to be around people who try to kiss her without warning and her approval and this is perfectly ok. This is how most people work. It’s a rule.
If you are really convinced you should say something I would leave it as something very short and to the point…
“Hi [name]. I just wanted to say sorry for the time I went to kiss you without warning. I realise now it was inappropriate and made you feel uncomfortable. I won’t try to do that again. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine. I just wanted to make sure I’ve apologised. Regards ____”
I wanted to add that i really really really did not want to hurt her. I’m just that dense (even if you can’t imagine it) and my instincts told me that would be a fine thing to do.
For future reference, and to keep you out of jail, always ask for consent before physical contact. Asking may seem awkward, or counterintuitive, but it removes doubt. Also, ‘no’ means ‘no’, and no reason or explanation is necessary.
There was a time when I was just as clueless as you were on that day, so I can relate. I learned the ways of humans since. It’s all arbitrarily codified so it takes a while to figure out, but you know the best way to learn is by making mistakes. Just don’t dwell on them too much.
Yes, thank goodness you asked because I am dying to post about it online because I’m a big idiot.
/sobviouslyIsn’t the internet anonymous enough for you?
Are you kidding me? I’m bouncing my traffic through two layers of commercial VPNs, blocking every tracker under the sun and I’m still not stupid enough to think I’m actually anonymous.
Oh sweet child…
